Big Business is watching you! (email privacy)

Member Name: MichaelR

Product:	email privacy
Date:	15/02/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The government is not playing Big Brother

Disadvantages: Businesses are already monitoring you.

It seems to me that many people are worried about the government potentially having the power to 'listen in' on their Internet activity without actually having considered who's listening in already...

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) really doesn't worry me at all.

If you actually read this act, you will see that it is just as much about protecting the individual against unlawful interception of correspondence as it is about allowing government agencies to listen in. In fact, the whole first chapter of the act, right from the first article, deals with what constitutes unlawful interception of correspondence.

This act is not really about allowing the government to play Big Brother, and to find out how many kisses you put at the end of the last e-mail to your girlfriend, it's about giving the police and other appropriate agencies the power to intercept any form of communication (this doesn't only deal with electronic communication - it also covers wireless telephony and extends powers relating to fixed telephony and mail) that it reasonably believes could form part of a criminal operation.

In order to be able to intercept any communication, a warrant must be applied for from the courts. This is no different to the procedure employed should the police wish to search your house or tap your phone.

Yes, I would be a bit aggrieved if I thought that the police or any other agency was reading my personal e-mail without my knowledge, but this is not going to happen unless I suddenly decide to take up a second career in drug smuggling or something.

I'm not a criminal - and there is no reason for any agency to suspect me of being one. Evidence is required to obtain a warrant, and therefore one must be acting very suspiciously in order for such a warrant to be granted.

I think that we should be far more worried about all the unregulated snooping that is going on.


I am very paranoid when it comes to this. I use a firewall, and you only have to examine the log after a short session on the 'net to discover how many sites you visit are trying to extract data from you.

The whole nature of the IP protocol makes it very, very easy for almost anyone to collect vast amounts of information about you every time you connect to a new gateway.

The fairly weak security of most browsers on standard security settings also means that it is very easy for any gateway you establish a connection with to plant a cookie on your machine, which can be used to extract further information about you.

The information extracted is frequently sold and used for advertising/marketing purposes, and can generate a list of every website you visit, how long you stay there, what browser you were using, what your IP address is, etc.

There are also a great many individuals out there trying to extract information from you for fraudulent purposes... or just because they think it is funny to mess up your web mail accounts and kill your ICQ. This has never happened to me personally, but I do know more than one person who it has affected.

I really do think that everyone should consider software to close ports that are not in use, because without such software, anyone can be connected to your computer at any time, doing almost anything, and you would never know.

The truth is that anyone with a good knowledge of Internet Protocol can snoop on almost anyone else without their knowledge, as the vast majority of home users do not use firewalls.

I don't wish to scaremonger and imply that this is widespread, however it does happen, and I am merely pointing out that those who are worried about the possibility that their personal correspondence could be monitored should consider that it may already be happening, and far more unscrupulous characters than Tony Blair could be collecting data on you.

If
you wish to minimise this risk, then you should equip yourself with a good firewall. There are some good free firewalls available (I'll try to write an op on the one that I use soon) and these can restrict the flow of data to your specific requirements and warn you about anything unusual.

Don't worry about what the government is doing... if you have to worry, then worry about what people like doubleclick.net are doing!!

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